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NEW YORK — For nearly a year, Shahed Hussain would slip into his role as a wealthy Pakistani businessman and head for Newburgh. He was “Maqsood” when he arrived at local mosque Masjid Al-Ikhlas driving a BMW, or maybe Hummer depending on the day. He was there to listen for Islamic extremism and report back to the FBI, he said. Hussain testified on Friday in the federal trial of four Newburgh men accused of trying to shoot down planes at Stewart Air National Guard Base and blow up a synagogue and Jewish center in the Bronx. The men — James...

The possibility that the alleged New York bomb plotters converted to Islam in prison and adopted radical views could provide evidence of how the criminal-justice system can be fertile ground for terrorist recruitment. Authorities said they believed all four men charged in the attack were Muslim and that some may have converted in prison. It isn't clear whether these conversions were linked to the radical views officials say they espoused while plotting to bomb two New York City synagogues and shoot down U.S. military planes... According to New York state corrections records, alleged ringleader James Cromitie and David Williams gave...

A successful counter-terrorism operation led by the FBI and the New York City Police Department ended with the arrest of four New York City men in connection with plots to bomb Jewish synagogues and gun down military planes in upstate areas. ———— Today’s announcement of the foiled terror plot is a stark reminder that we are still under attack — eight years after the September 11 massacres. And if we are under attack, it means that we are still at war, a real one, not a “man-made disaster.” ————- According to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly the suspects, identified as James...

NEW YORK: Three of four Muslim men suspected of a plot to blow up two New York synagogues and shoot down military planes were ordered to remain in jail on Thursday in what police have called home-grown terrorism. The case has shakenBronx borough where the police said the men, who had been watched for nearly a year in a sting operation, planted what they thought were bombs in cars parked outside each synagogue. The suspects then intended to shoot down planes with guided surface-to-air missiles, but the explosives and the missiles, which had been sold to the accused plotters by...

NEWBURGH, N.Y. — The four men accused of plotting to bomb New York City synagogues and shoot down military airplanes with missiles are down-and-out ex-convicts living on the margins in a faded industrial city. One is a petty criminal who spent a day in 2002 snatching purses and shooting at people with a BB gun from an SUV. His lawyer calls him "intellectually challenged." Three have histories of drug convictions, one of them for selling narcotics in a school zone...But if they sometimes seemed amateurish, the men were dangerous people fueled by their hatred for Jews and America, prosecutors said....

Is it possible that the Bronx Four operated alone, without any connection to foreign terrorists. In an elaborate sting operation, four African-American Muslim men were arrested Wednesday night in New York City for attempting to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and for conspiring to shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, NY. James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen were friends who had met while serving time in prison and it was there that they converted to Islam. The bombs in their possession were fake; supplied to them by an FBI informant...

It's scant comfort that the four men ar rested Wednesday night as they car ried out what they thought was their own private jihad -- attempting to car-bomb two Riverdale synagogues and shoot down military planes in upstate Newburgh -- were not trained terrorists. Don't be misled by the amateurish nature of their misadventure. What the four lacked in brains, they more than made up for in malign intent. And the fact that their plot went as far as it did -- the men actually had planted what they thought were deadly bombs before the feds moved in -- dramatically...

EXCLUSIVE: Four New York City men were arrested Wednesday in connection with an alleged plot to blow up New York City synagogues and other city locations, WNBC's Jonathan Dienst has learned. Raids by the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force in the Bronx captured the suspected ringleader and three followers in what law enforcement sources are calling a homegrown terrorist plot. Investigators stress the suspects' meetings had been infiltrated early on and there was "no chance" the alleged plot could succeed. Investigators said several of the suspects are Muslims who allegedly talked about destroying two Jewish temples, including at least one...